Tag Archive: Voices on the Square

Welcome to You’re Doing It Wrong, a weekly column taking the Powers That Be (PTB) – whether they be political, media, or business – to task for poor information, poor framing, and poor leadership.

This is an extraordinary piece by John Cusack with Jonathan Turley that needs to be read by everyone, and especially by those of us who consider ourselves progressives and/or liberals. It’s long, but it’s well worth the read. Printed in its entirety with permission from the author, John Cusack.

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By John Cusack

Now that the Republican primary circus is over, I started to think about what it would mean to vote for Obama…

Since mostly we hear from the daily hypocrisies of Mitt and friends, I thought we should examine “our guy” on a few issues with a bit more scrutiny than we hear from the “progressive left”, which seems to be little or none at all.

Instead of scrutiny, the usual arguments in favor of another Obama presidency are made: We must stop fanatics;-he’s the last line of defense from the corporate barbarians-and of course the Supreme Court. It all makes a terrible kind of sense and I agree completely with Garry Wills who described the Republican primaries as ” a revolting combination of con men and fanatics…the current primary race has become a demonstration that the Republican party does not deserve serious consideration for public office.”

Welcome to You’re Doing It Wrong, a weekly column taking the Powers That Be (PTB), especially the media and talking heads, to task for poor information and poor framing.

This week, I’m not going after the media and talking heads; instead, I’m going after the PTB for something that I don’t think is well thought through and could result in some rather negative unintended consequences.

As technology has developed, it has made many things in life a whole lot easier, which is awesome. But sometimes that technology, even if it makes things easier, should not be widely available to just anyone.

Last week, the Obama campaign released a new app for the iphone that allows anyone to download a google map with addresses of voters, and includes name, address, age, gender, and party affiliation. They did this to make it easier for anyone to volunteer to go door to door to do GOTV canvassing. I can understand the want to expand this accessibility to a wider pool of grassroots volunteers, but is it really a good idea?

Welcome to You’re Doing It Wrong, a weekly column taking the Powers That Be (PTB), especially the media and talking heads, to task for poor information and poor framing.

Well, this week I’m ruffled by, yes, the Chik-fil-A brouhaha and something the media is doing that is not constructive.

This week marked the big right wing Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, so there were not only prominent people speaking up about it, but the media covered it pretty heavily on Wednesday.

People like Mike Huckabee set the stage by framing the argument as one of defending Dan Cathy’s freedom of speech and stopping him from “being disenfranchised from his citizenship and rights of free speech”. Rick Santorum not only cited the free speech, but also freedom of religion. Pretty soon all their followers were parroting these talking points.

I’ve discussed the BCA (Budget Control Act of 2011) both here and here and the fact that the MIC aided by Republicans and Democrats through the use of propaganda campaigns are attempting to use fear as a tactic to override the, well any “cuts” to the Defense budget. The facts mean nothing to these people obviously.

Now enter the ties between industry and congress to propagate behind closed doors the expectations of those that have become used to and flourishes on the peoples dime.

Former Lockheed vice president Ann Elise Sauer was hired by Sen. John McCain in February as the top Republican staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The revolving door swings regularly in Washington, but the size of the compensation package Sauer received from Lockheed when she left the company is notable. A financial disclosure form shows the defense giant gave Sauer $1.6 million in compensation around the time she took a buyout in January 2011.

Originally posted at Voices on the Square, a new blog in the sphere featuring News, Information, and Fun!

Welcome to You’re Doing It Wrong!, a weekly column taking the Powers That Be (PTB), especially the media and talking heads, to task for poor information and poor framing.

This week I’m building on the narrative from last week on the state of journalism in this country. I’m doing it because last Sunday I finally had the time to watch all the episodes that I had DVRd of the new show The Newsroom, and I’m giddy about it.

It’s a show that is about a fictional newsroom at a cable network. Granted it’s a drama, so its characters are going to have their share of personal story lines, but when it comes to showcasing the news and a newsroom, what goes on and more importantly what should be going on – this show gets as close to right as I’ve seen anything get.